


I learned how to love, 'cause you taught me how

by flamboyo



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: (in the past), (it's one line), Alcohol, Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Body Image, Canon Compliant, Crying, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Make Up, Referenced past eating disorders, Vomiting, Перевод на русский | Translation in Russian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:00:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23533441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamboyo/pseuds/flamboyo
Summary: He shouldn’t have drunk that morning, he should have stood his ground, protested, said something, anything, but-It already happened,he reminds himself.He already did it.He doesn’t have any control over any aspect of his life. Everyone just wants a piece of him, they will take whatever they want from him and leave him with the consequences.*Or, the aftermath of Liam’s naked photoshoot (+ some months later, when he has another photoshoot, but this time under his own terms).
Relationships: Zayn Malik/Liam Payne
Comments: 27
Kudos: 139





	I learned how to love, 'cause you taught me how

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! In these difficult times, I hope to find you all well :)  
> I wrote this fic out of pure frustration and maybe even rage about the treatment Liam always receives by the people he works with. When I saw the photo he sent to Mert Alas, I was reminded yet again that his idea of himself is way different from the one that gets portrayed.  
> This work is a bit heavy, so if anything listed in the tags may upset you, I suggest you close this. If not, enjoy the reading! :) x  
> Title is from Liam's Tell Your Friends
> 
> **[The Russian translation is available here](https://ficbook.net/readfic/9719091)**

Liam comes back to his flat, alone.

It’s dark outside and the house awaits for him with its cold, dreary arms.

He’s exhausted, and drunk. Way too drunk to walk up the stairs alone, way too drunk to _be_ alone when he feels like this. He knows himself, knows how much all of this is a bad idea: he chucks his phone to the ground, full of unread messages and work emails, and without even taking his shoes off he walks up to the cabinet in the living room, tears it open and grabs the whiskey bottle like a lifeline.

There’s a moment that lasts an eternity, when he can see his reflection in the bottle’s neck: his face is distorted, monstrous, reminding of what he has done, of what he just let happen to him. It doesn’t stop him, but rather gives him an additional sense of urgency in uncapping the bottle and taking a swing directly from it.

The alcohol burns its way down to his throat. His teeth hurt. The liquid hits his empty stomach immediately, and he puts the bottle on the shelf again, this time without daring to look at himself.

Even the distorted, mocking representation of himself in the tinted glass is something he’d rather be, than the person he is now.

It’s not even that there’s a gaping hole in him, he himself _is_ that crack, that vacuum. There’s only an empty shell of him, standing in front of a cabinet _he should have kept empty, after those months, a couple of years ago._

His knees almost give out, thinking about what happened up to his driver leaving him to his door, just some minutes ago. He grabs the shelf and shakes his head: there’s no reason to come back to that. Nothing is going to change. It already happened, he’s already empty.

It already happened.

Taking the bottle with him, he goes sit on the floor, with his back resting on the sofa. The light on his phone is still beeping, signalling he has messages to read, emails to reply to, and is sending him into a deeper spiral of anxiety that the one he’s already in.

His hands are already shaking, and he remembers when he could drink shot after shot and not feeling anything: those times are gone, and he should be grateful to himself for that.

He shouldn’t have drunk that morning, he should have stood his ground, protested, said something, anything, but-

 _It already happened,_ he reminds himself. _He already did it._

He doesn’t have any control over any aspect of his life, everyone just wants a piece of him, take whatever they can and leave him with the consequences.

He grabs his phone: the messages appearing on the screen are a few hours old, and they’re mocking him now, saying: _“call me later! I wanna know how it went!”_ , and _“I know it’s not your genre but maybe you’ll still have fun :)”_ , and _“you’re such a diva, answer me!”_

Liam stares at the screen with vacant eyes, feeling nausea building up in his stomach. He turns the phone away from him and turns it off that way: he had learnt, way too many years ago, that by doing that he wouldn’t have to see his face in the black reflection of the screen. 

He can’t bear to see his face, to feel his hands, even to take off something simple as his _shoes_ right now.

Right now, he wants to be blackout drunk, until he won’t even remember what shape his nose has, the way his stomach is built, or what happened this morning.

Taking another swing, he closes his eyes.

The darkness, he knows, will come soon to take him in its arms. It’s everything he could ask for. 

~*~

Lucidity comes back at him in waves, and each one is stronger than the last one.

When he wakes up he’s frozen to the point where his hands feel numb, but he only tightens his grip to his whiskey and grinds his teeth about it.

There’s no way he’s going to stand up and, for fuck’s sake, _take a shower._

He should, even he can feel how rancid he already smells like, and he knows how that is the only thing that would soothe his numb skin. But the thought of seeing himself naked, of _feeling_ his body under his hands makes him squeeze his eyes shut, an avalanche of disparate thoughts fogging his mind, trying to swallow those images and the nausea that comes with them.

His mind has retracted to a corner of his skull, _I’m not my body, I don’t want to be my body._ Usually he would add, _there’s so much more about myself,_ but this time around even that makes him nauseous.

Today (or was it yesterday already, can it be tomorrow instead?) maybe he just _doesn’t want to be._ Today even having a pair of hands is too much, even looking down to see how his knuckles are white around the whiskey makes him wanna puke.

There’s nothing of this body he recognise as himself, nothing he wants to be associated with.

 _I don’t wanna be here,_ he wails, pathetic, desperate. He doesn’t want to be inside himself. He wants to start again, _can I? I got everything wrong. I’m going to do better next time around, I promise, please, please, please._

But there’s nobody to hear his prayers, and he drinks more, until darkness comes again.

~*~

Next time he wakes up he barely manages to turn on his side to puke on the floor. That scares him enough to grab the sofa behind him and stand up on his shaky legs.

 _No puking while unconcious,_ he repeats to himself like a mantra. He did a whole lot of dumb shit in his life, but dying by suffocation with his own vomit was maybe too low even for him.

He gets up and the floor shifts, every line blurs and spaces change, jumping towards him. He grasps the couch harder, focuses his eyes on the floor and forces himself to breathe. He reeks of alcohol and acid. His throat burns so much it’s difficult for him to breath, his stomach feels upside down, but his mind is floating, away.

He’d take that over the pain in his body any given day.

Once he knows he won’t fall on his ass the second he takes a step further, he does so: he arrives in the kitchen a while later.

There were weekends where this was a normal occurrence. He thought those dark times were past him, but everything about those days is here with him again: the disgust towards himself, the deep, profound hatred that sparks when he sees a glimpse of himself reflected on the kitchen’s faucet.

The water he drinks is only for tricking his stomach he is on its side: he isn’t. He’s just getting ready to drink more.

He goes back, takes another bottle without even checking what that it is and goes pissing in the toilet; once he’s done, climbs in his bed, under the duvet, shoes still firmly in place.

He doesn’t exist.

The problems he’s creating have no meaning. No repercussion. The world is dark and empty and he’s alright with it.

He drinks again, and can now barely feel the liquid going down his throat. Holding the bottle like a doll, he slides in the shadows again.

~*~

There’s a ring, somewhere, that is drilling in his skull.

He tries to turn to the other side, but his body is made of marble, it weighs tons and tons. He’s a rock and he’s lying there, with no hope to ever turn or get up. He swears he could have lost his humanity, apart from the pain that the ring is piercing in his skull.

The ring continues, undaunted, and Liam would cry, if he could: why no one ever listens to him? He’s just asking to be alone.

He wants to forget how he is a human, how a human requires to have a physical form. He would take off his face, if he could, in the sense that he had thought, sometimes, of peeling it off and making him finally free of this obligation.

No one gets that pure disgust he feels: granted, he was off his arse that time he had tried to explain so, and was met with four confused, concerned faces. To his horror, one of those concerned faces remained so even in the morning after, when they were both sober, and asked him, all hushed tone and soft touches, what he meant the night before. That was hard to explain. Liam isn’t sure he did so.

Right now, he doesn’t care about concern or any type of apprehension: with great difficulty, he moves one arm and positions it on his face, trying to block anything that reminds him he’s not alone in this pool of darkness.

The curve of his elbow, though, reminds him he has a nose, and that disgust he had tried to drown with alcohol sneaks up on him, starting from his stomach and working his way up to his throat.

With an energy he _doesn’t have,_ an energy that is pure _survival instinct,_ he turns to puke again, and his vision gives out: the world is spinning in a swirl of black blobs and sudden gleams, that makes him so dizzy he can’t even feel the duvet he’s grasping with his shaky hands.

He coughs until his throat feels empty, and it burns like he’s been drinking kerosene. Tears have fallen down his eyes, and there’s just an ugly, disgusting mess on his face, that he knows he can’t touch. He can't bear to remember his features. Not now. 

The ringing, in all of this, hasn’t stopped for a second.

He’s too tired to start crying now, too exhausted to scream, but there’s nothing he’d rather do: it’s too much, too much, _too much,_ he just wants to be alone, alone, _alone,_ have nothing on his mind and become so numb his perception of the world will shift to the metaphysics.

He had tried to explain that, too, and was only meet with wolf whistles of _“Payno is getting philosophical,”_ and _“the fuck are you even talking about, lad?”._

The only one who came to him, later, to ask him again about it, he had eyes too pretty and sincere for Liam to share something so ugly about himself. He didn’t deserve to know how damaged he was. So he just offered him a fake smile and a joke at his own expenses, at which the other didn’t laugh.

A dim light seeps the room with cold tones; it’s enough for Liam to re-focus on his room, and appreciate himself for puking outside his bed. Small victories.

The ringing stops, and Liam is so thankful he closes his eyes, sighing, ready to rest his head again on the pillow and blackout for some more hours.

But the universe isn’t done mocking him, because the next sound is the distinctive clink of a bunch of keys, and soon enough one of those slips into the lock and open his flat’s door.

In his drunken stupor, he can’t make anything out of it: is it a robber? Would a robber have his keys? And why did they ring for so long before, then?

_Who the fuck is it, what they want from him, why he can never have anything he wants, no one ever listens to him, he has no control over his life, he hates it, he hates it, he-_

“Li?” a voice calls.

Fuck. He knows this voice.

He had moments when he was so drunk he couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk, couldn’t remember where his flat was or his mum’s name, but he always had this voice clear as a lighthouse in the night. It’s the voice of someone who cares so much about him he always took the time to go back to him and ask him about his words.

“Li,” the voice calls again, louder. “Are you here?”

The door closes, and he is already inside. Liam can only think about the puddle of vomit in the living room, the one on the floor right next to him, where he’s lying fully clothed, hiding under the duvets. He can only think how despite the fact he’s engaged with the man who’s calling for him, despite the fact that this man has a sleeve of tattoos just for him, _Liam,_ the only things he wants right now is for him to go away and leave him alone in his misery.

He hears him walking around, while he prays he would just turn on his steps and go away, forget about him. But there’s no such thing as _luck_ when it comes to Liam, and he has to hear the footsteps moving around the flat, while the voice (that soft, silky, soothing voice, that dragged him out the worst dark holes of his life), keeps calling his name, in a soft plea.

He’s terrified to be confronted with what he has done, to what happened before, and-

The sole thought takes him over, and he curls in his soiled duvet, begging his mind to _shut up,_ just for once. It doesn’t.

There’s a gasp, and the voice becomes more urgent.

“Liam, Liam, _Liam,_ ” he’s begging, and he shouldn’t. “Are you here? Please, please, I-” he’s interrupted with a sob, and now he’s near, he’s just behind the door.

He opens the door brusquely, with too much force. Maybe he thought it was locked.

 _“Liam,”_ his voice cracks.

Liam doesn’t even have the energy to turn to him, and remains there, curled up in the duvet, despite everything still hoping the other will just _go away._

He knows he’s lying still, with vomit on the floor. He knows how this looks like. He is not doing it for malice, he genuinely has no energy to even call out an, _‘I’m here, I’m alright’._

The footsteps get to him quickly, and soon enough there’s a hand shaking his shoulder, another one caressing his hair.

“Liam, please, oh god, please wake up, I, I, I can’t, Liam,” the litany goes on, and Liam knows he’s crying. He’s disgusted with himself. His hands are cold against his forehead, and it’s so nice, so simple, and it takes him back to the world of senses, but this time of the gentle ones.

“ _Jaan,”_ he calls again, and Liam’s heart swells.

 _I don't deserve it,_ he reminds himself.

But the other doesn't deserve either to be so desperate, so, mustering all his strength, he opens his mouth, and a hoarse whisper comes out, just a: “I’m fine, I’m here, love.”

He wants to add more, but the air hits the back of his throat, and suddenly he’s coughing out days of pent up rage, despair, sorrow, and he can’t stop coughing even when the other man, that _angel,_ tries to prop him against the wall.

Everything burns, his head pulses and he can’t open his eyes: it hurts too much. There’s pure acid in his stomach, and he’s so, so tired. The man is still talking to him, and he can’t hear a single word: the blood pumping in his ears is too loud, the fog behind his eyes too thick.

The man eventually leaves him, only to come back moments later with a glass of water and some pills in his hand.

“Take these,” he instructs, voice still broken. He thrusts the items in Liam’s hand and retrieves the alcohol bottle that was poking under the sheets.

“I’m sorry,” Liam croaks out, but it hurts too much to add anything else. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, not even knowing for what.

_It already happened. It’s already gone._

Liam inhales sharply, drowns the pills and presses the back of his hand to his mouth. He hasn’t raised his eyes to meet the other’s not even once. He doesn’t have the courage to do so.

The other one must have noticed, because even when he leans towards him, to caress him once again, and Liam flinches away, he doesn’t even sound surprised. Just tired.

He says, “Go to sleep, okay? I’ll be here when you’ll wake up.” He’s still crying.

His words are meant to be soothing, but Liam is petrified.

He can’t even nod: he just lays down again, while the other helps him get covered with the duvet.

He closes his eyes, and hopes the darkness will embrace him and not leave him soon.

~*~

When you reach a certain point of desperation, your perception of the world will shift into something you’ve created for yourself, a distorted reality that feeds into your worst nightmares, and, sometimes, makes you take wrong decisions.

That’s why, when Liam wakes up again and this time his room is completely dark, his first thought is, _I have to drink more._

Whatever he has been fed, it had lessened his headache and stomach pain, shifting him into the hungover part of his intoxication. He wants none of it: the hungover is the worst part, that’s well known, when you have all the pain and none of the hazy confusion, and start gaining your consciousness back. When you start remembering not only what induced you to drink as much as you did, but also what you have done under the influence.

If he could take something to be in a long-lasting black sea, one that rocks him gently, where he has no obligation, no physical form, and there’s no one ready to get a piece of him, he would do it in a heartbeat.

He never even bothered to explain that one: he knows how it sounds like.

His knees almost give out multiple times, but he manages to drag himself to the living room, where his alcohol should be waiting for him. What he finds, instead, is an empty cabinet and a sleeping figure laying down on the couch, covered in blankets.

A dry sob erupts from his chest, one he can’t swallow down even pressing his hands on his mouth: it’s all _gone._

Nobody ever fucking cares about him. How doesn’t he know he _needs_ it? This is not a normal occurrence, it’s not even like how it used to be during those months, this one now is a _necessity_ and he fucking swung around and ruined _everything._

He’s leaning on a wall, unable to sustain himself, and sees the sleeping figure moving. He stops breathing, but it’s too late.

“Li,” he salutes him, surprised, all mussy hair and tired eyes. He has never been a light sleeper, but Liam guesses he had fucked up that, too. “You're awake, I-”

“Zayn,” he growls, not affectionately like him. “What the fuck have you done?” he’s shaking. Zayn stands up from the sofa, slowly, like he’s approaching a wild animal. “Where's my alcohol? Why the _fuck_ are you here!” His tone escalates until he’s almost screaming.

Zayn wavers, but keeps moving towards him, still uncertain. “Li, let's... Calm down, okay?” he tries, until he’s almost a couple of feet away from him. He stretches a hand out: “Just-”

Liam jumps backwards, hitting the wall with his back. He feels trapped. “Don't fucking touch me,” he says, but he sounds close to pleading now.

Zayn drops his hand and takes a step back. “I wasn't going to,” and fuck, he has tears in his eyes, but Liam's too tense and on edge right now.

He can’t stand to be stared at, the blood pulsing in his temples getting louder and louder. Fuck, he needs a drink, and _fuck,_ he can’t have one because fucking _Mother Theresa_ threw his alcohol out. Rage doesn’t take long to come back.

“But you still came here and threw my alcohol out?” he roars again. “Get out. I don't want you here.”

Zayn doesn’t even flinch: instead, he straightens his back, and looking at him in the eyes says: “No. I'm not going anywhere. And you know it.” He talks clearly, slowly, too assured for Liam’s taste. He wants him out.

“I'll throw you out. You know I can.” _You don’t weigh anything, how hard can it be?_ He could add, but he doesn’t. There are some lines you can’t cross, no matter how angry and hungover you could be.

“And I know you won't.”

He’s so fucking calm, Liam feels like he could explode, but even there, he knows he's right. He's so angry his vision is gleaming with white strokes, his shoulders hurt for being so tense, but he would never do anything to him.

 _Fuck._ Reality hits him like a ton of bricks.

What is he doing? Screaming like an animal to the person he loves the most in the world? Who’s just trying to help him?

A moment of lucidity comes to him, and he realises he still has the same clothes from days ago, he reeks of alcohol and sweat, and the floor of the living room is clean. _Fuck._

“Fuck.” He retreats from Zayn, curls into himself. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, _I'm sorry,_ ”

“It's alright, Li,” he tries to comfort him, still staying away from him. “Listen-”

“It's not,” he cuts him off, because he can’t stand to be fed lies.

Fuck, everything comes back at him, and he's too lucid. Suddenly, he remembers who he is, what he has done, and he can't be seen like this. Fuck, _Zayn_ can see him. Zayn, the most perfect man he’s ever encountered, who somehow managed to fall in love with _him._ He can see his face, his body, all of his flaws. He can't have this. 

“You have to get out of here,” he repeats, and it's not a question anymore: he’s openly begging now. “I don't want you here,” he tries again, but he’s not biting anymore. Zayn can't see him while he's like this.

“ _Jaan_ , I-” he interrupts himself, because he must see how Liam's face scrunches up at that, and not in a good way. “ _Jaan_ ,” he repeats, clearer, louder. “I'm not going anywhere. You don't have to explain anything just now, but-”

Just the thought of having to explain what happened, why he drank as much as he did, Liam's whole body shudders. His fingers twitch, and he can’t breathe. He needs more alcohol. He can’t face this while sobering up, can’t stand to feel this pain within him anymore. Alcohol is his friend, alcohol numbs the pain and makes him forget. How can’t Zayn see that?

Zayn is already talking, hasen’t stopped a second, with his soft, gentle voice, but Liam’s mind is reeling, distressed, and he can’t focus on anything, except how much he needs to drink again.

As quickly as he can, counting on the element of surprise, he turns around and scrambles to the kitchen.

His bottles are on the ground, empty. Every single one of them. 

He walks up to those slowly, hoping his eyes are playing tricks on him. He kneels down, his head spinning, and starts picking them up, one by one, to look at them closer: empty. All of them. 

Zayn is next to him in a heartbeat, but Liam is already screaming again: "What have you done, why, _why_." He’s closer to tears than before, he's angry, done, distraught.

No one ever listens to him. They only use him. Even his fiancé. Even he doesn’t care about him, even he doesn’t realise that this is something he needs, because something bigger than him happened. He’s a lost cause, there’s no hope, there’s _desperately_ no hope.

His screams mix with each other and he’s not sure anymore of what he’s saying, and they become wails, whimpers, and his knees hurt to stand on the floor like that, and he’s cold, so cold, inside out.

Zayn hugs him from behind and he really, _really_ can’t bear the thought of being touched right now: he tries to shake him off, but Zayn is still there, glued to him. He starts singing, softly, something he can’t recognise. It only makes him cry harder: he knows all of this too well, and he’s so tired of this story, so done with crying on the floor and being hungover. Weren’t those times over? Didn’t he managed to stop this madness, didn’t he find something better to put his rage into, something that wouldn’t destroy him as badly?

“Stop touching me,” he pleads, angry and desperate, because even if Zayn is only hugging his shoulders, he’s giving him something to grip onto, something that is connecting him even more back to the Earth.

He can’t have it, he intoxicated himself so much to be detached from reality, he doesn’t want to be back. He doesn’t want to be forced inside his body just yet. But Zayn is still there, hugging him and singing to him, saying soft words full of love that he can’t comprehend right now. He can’t stand any of that.

“I told you to stop,” he repeats, and pushes him over, on the floor.

He's too weak to have done any damage, and sees the other simply landing on his bum, a couple of inches away, but his expression is so shocked that the deep hatred sitting at the pit of his stomach becomes even stronger.

 _What am I doing,_ everything is so wrong, why can’t he have some peace? Is he really hurting the only person who loves him enough to put up with him when he’s like this?

Another sob comes up, and he has no energy left to calm himself.

“I'm sorry,” he whimpers, and he's not just that, he's desperate and tired and wants nothing to do with the sensorial word. He wants his black sea again. “But you have to stop touching me.” Zayn has backed off now, and is sitting a couple of feet away from him. His eyes shine with tears. “Please, go away. I’m just hurting you.”

“Liam,” and in a second he's starting to get angry as well. His voice becomes tougher: “You didn't respond to your phone for two days. No one knew where you were. Fuck, yesterday, when I came here, I…” He cuts himself off, eyes wandering around the room. He drops his head to his hands, breathing slowly. When he raises his head again, still facing away from him, he has tears down his cheeks. “I thought you were dead,” his voice cracks, and Liam didn’t think he could feel worse than he already did. “Do you understand that? You don't get to tell me to go away, fuck. Fuck, Liam.”

He's crying again.

They both are, sitting on the cold kitchen tiles, too much space between them. Liam doesn’t have the courage to reach for him, even though he knows how much Zayn would need it. He feels bugs crawling under his skin, he wants to strip his whole body away from him. How can he touch the loveliest human on earth, when his hands are this unholy?

When Zayn gets that nothing else is going to happen, he takes a deep breath, and starts again, tentatively: “You don’t have to say what happened, but-”

“Nothing happened,” Liam interrupts him, way too quickly.

Zayn sends him a glance. “Li…”

“Nothing new,” he concedes, and he’s not lying. “Nothing worth of notice. It’s always gonna be like this, isn’t it?” he looks at the distance between them. He feels like he is losing again. “There’s no need to bother.”

“I’m- _Li_ ,” he croaks out, shaken. “I will always... _bother_ about you, you get that? I care about you, I _love_ you.” Liam doesn’t respond. “You haven’t drunk like this in years, so it’s-”

“I can’t talk about it,” Liam interrupts him, because then maybe he will shut up about this story and leave him alone to rot. He can’t even think about it.

His words serve the opposite purpose, though, because suddenly Zayn is alarmed. “Do I… Liam, fuck. Do I need to call the police or something?” he says, voice a whisper, like that would be enough to not upset him.

Liam just laughs, and it’s an ugly sound. “No. Don’t…” _bother,_ he wants to repeat, but that didn’t seem to work.

There’s a pause, where none of them knows what to say.

“Okay.” Zayn keeps on saying okay, nodding, like he’s convincing himself everything is alright, like to have the feeling that he knows what he is doing, what is going on. “Okay, then,” he repeats, sounding more convinced. “I won’t call anyone.”

Liam feels relieved. _Go away,_ he keeps thinking.

“Well… Listen, now you should drink some water, okay?” a hint of a spark is back in Zayn’s eyes. Liam loves him with everything he has got, but he can’t keep up with him right now. It’s not _water_ what he wants. “Maybe have some food. Have you eaten today?” He doesn’t even know which day it is, and the idea of food _horrifies_ him, so he remains silent. Zayn, undaunted and set on making him feel better, adds: “You should have a shower, as well, maybe you’ll feel better then?”

If Zayn had decided to hit him, it would have hurt less.

“You know damn well,” and he’s screaming again.

It’s so humiliating already, to be sitting on a floor in the middle of the night after having blacked out for two whole days, apparently, to be screaming like a wounded animal, to not be able to look at your fiancé in his eyes. He knows he stinks, of alcohol and sweat and vomit, he knows he’s disgusting, but Zayn shouldn’t suggest those kinds of things. Zayn should know him enough to not put those images in his brain.

“You know damn well I can’t do that, right now.” His voice drops to a whisper. He’s too mortified to say that any louder.

Zayn gasps a couple of times, like a fish. “Li, fuck,” he sighs, in the end. “I know.” And he does, that’s the part that breaks Liam the most. He knows all of this in first person, with his own demons. “I- sorry. And, for before. I just… I got scared. You haven’t got like this in years.” he dries his tears with his sleeve. He looks so small, so fragile under the dim lights of the kitchen. “You didn’t call me, I…” he looks away, and Liam knows he’s crying again. “Fuck, Li. I thought you… Just let me help you.”

“You can’t.” It’s scary, how true that feels.

“I’d do anything,” he begs. “Please stop pushing me away, I-”

“It already happened,” he says again, but this time he can’t stop. “It’s always like that with me, isn’t it? Everybody wants a piece. They never want me, they want to take something from me. And I need to fit into their idea of… fuck knows what. They don’t care, and it’s… it’s whatever, but they didn’t even ask this time and-” he cuts himself off, abruptly. He said too much.

“Li,” _fuck,_ he’s scared again. “They didn’t ask… what?”

Liam doesn’t respond.

Zayn takes a deep breath, but his voice still comes out shaky.

“All the people who... are supposed to be working _for you_ are complete garbage, okay? I know you know, and I know that deep down you know you don’t deserve any of this. That you’re loved, that I love you with my whole soul, that I adore _everything_ about you.”

Liam senses a _but_ coming.

“But they’ve never pushed you to this level. Not in years. I know you remember how it ended up, last time-”

“Shut up,” he mumbles, but he’s weak.

“I’m- Li. Love of mine.” He scots closer to him, but he’s still far. That isn’t a metaphor for anything. “I'm on your side. I will always be.” He slips a hand under the collar of his hoodie, and takes out his necklace: it’s the ring Liam gave him years ago, alongside with a promise. “I’m gonna marry you. I can’t wait to marry you.” He’s crying again. “Please, stop pushing me away. I can't have you like you used to be, we-” his voice cracks, and he lets out a sob. 

Liam watches as he retreats in himself and hugs his own legs, folded in front of him. He catches his left arm with his right hand, and circles it with his thumb and middle finger, just above the elbow. His fingers don't meet now, but Liam remembers the days when they could. Ultimately, that’s what makes Liam want to talk. Zayn can’t bear to have him how he used to be, but Liam can’t either.

“I went to sleep with my shoes on, you know?” Zayn raises his head, confused, a look that clearly says _‘where are you going for with that one’_. “I can’t… I can’t take my clothes off, I think. I think it’s that kind of bad.”

Zayn knows him too well to start the _‘your body is beautiful’_ bullshit, and Liam’s grateful for that. He remains silent, watching him with his tired eyes, waiting for more. Giving him his space.

Liam snorts. His head reels for anxiety. “Got naked too much already. I had to drink to do it, can you imagine?”

He can see how Zayn tenses instantly at that. “W- what?”

“Yeah, they were surprised, too!” Suddenly, what happened seems _funny_ to him. Maybe it is and he’s just too touchy. He has been told that numerous times in his life. “They… they were all there, saying all kind of shits, like _‘with a body like yours, you’re shy to get naked?’_ and _‘if I were you, I’d let anyone see me’_ , and…” it’s already not fun anymore.

It’s not fun at all, to remember being surrounded by people insisting he dropped his clothes, who didn’t stop when he tried to protest, even if weakly. How they didn’t care to turn around, when he had to muster all his courage just to remain in his boxers, let alone drop those, too.

 _Isn’t this an underwear campaign?,_ he tried to humor, but they just had a chuckle and told him to continue. He was trapped. There was no way he could have avoided it.

“I was petrified but… I couldn’t do anything about it.” He can’t see anything. His eyes don’t focus on any surfaces: not on Zayn, who’s staring at him, mouth open in surprise and disgust, eyes wet with reflected pain.

“Liam-”

Liam doesn’t even hear him. He wanted the story, he’s going to tell him. “They got me tequila shots. Said that I looked scared in the photos and needed to be more loose, like I was having fun.”

What is fun about being drunk and naked in a room full of people he doesn't know? He had to discover, _not much._ The tequila appeared as a salvation, because suddenly he could pose without the familiar pull of peeling off his own skin; but in the long run, it only left him feeling even emptier.

“I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t.”

He can’t feel his legs anymore, for how cold he is; but it’s not just that: he’s trying to float away from this chaotic space, from a body he still doesn’t recognise as _his._ No matter how many hours in the gym he had spent, in his lifetime, to try and associate his pain and his efforts to this meat machine that always sustained and took care of him: it still feels out of place, sometimes. Curating his body so much, in the long run, just cemented the idea that it was the only thing he could offer. The only thing people became interested in.

“They… Liam,” Zayn’s voice cracks again. He’s crying, he can hear that, but he doesn’t have the guts to look at him. He knows how much he’s hurting, by hearing that, but it was him to insist so much. He would have rather not have said anything, and drunk himself to sleep again.

“I felt so... empty after. When it was all over, and all the cameras were off and I had my clothes back on again and everyone was leaving, I couldn't… I couldn’t move, anymore.” The worst part was that: at the end, realising what just happened, and knowing he had no opportunity to turn back time and have it different. “I realised what I had done. I basically filmed softcore porno.” He laughs again, and it sounds even uglier than before. It echoes inside him: empty.

“I didn’t want that, for my carrer, I don't want that,” he’s sobbing again. Thinking about the future, about what people for sure will say when they’ll see those photos, is too much to bear. He needs to drink again. “I can’t have people seeing those photos, I hate them, I want to burn them, I don't, I-” everything becomes too much: the bugs under his skin, the weight on his lungs, how dirty he feels. 

He starts pulling his clothes away from him, rubbing his hands alongside his shoulders, his face. He wants to cancel everything. Rubbing his skin until he loses all his features. He doesn’t want to have this body anymore.

“Li, _Liam_ ,” he gets called again, but this time is so much more assertive. “Stop. You’ll hurt yourself.”

He’s tired. He was sure he was never going to hear those words anymore. He stops, but only because Zayn is sounding too upset, and he doesn’t deserve that. His hands, now firmly placed on the ground, are still shaking.

“They gave you alcohol to take photos of you… naked?” he tries, unsure. He looks way paler than before, and his own hands are shaking as well. He’s not curled on himself anymore, he’s leaning towards him, like he’s hoping and praying for Liam to say, _‘hug me’._ They both know it won’t happen.

Liam shrugs. He’s cold, hungover, tired. He’s just a hand-me-down object.

“Yeah. I mean, as part of the photoshoot, not just to be pervs.” Maybe that could have been funny. He just wants the floor to swallow him, though. “I- I don’t know, okay? I don't know why, I don't know why they thought-" _it could've been a respected thing to ask,_ he wants to say, maybe, but he's too spent, too hurt, too nauseated to keep on saying words. He doesn’t even know why he’s trying to justify himself. He just wants to drink. 

His love, sitting in front of him, is all tears, rage and confusion. He’s looking at him with those pretty amber eyes of his, biting his lip.

“Why… Why did you accept to do this photoshoot?” He's not accusing, he’s genuinely confused, but it rubs Liam the wrong way.

“Fucking great,” and he laughs, but it feels like a stab. “So now this is my fault, too?” He's screaming again. He can’t do this. He stands up, clinging to the counter, shaking from the betrayal, the cold, the alcohol still in his system. “Get out, I don't wanna you here,” he roars.

Zayn bolts on his feet, too, with clear concern and desperation on his face, hands ready to catch him if he falls. Liam won't give him that satisfaction.

“I didn't mean _that_ , Li, I would never-”

“Fuck you.” He can’t cry again, he doesn’t have the energy to do so. “Do you think I knew? Do you think they are decent enough to tell me this shit?” He's grabbing the counter, but it's not enough to sustain him. Not when he's forced to remember what happened, how it went. “I didn't know. _I didn't_ ,” he whispers, like he’s trying to convince himself, too.

He wants to cover his face, go hiding where nobody could find him, and wait there for the darkness to hug him again. Instead, he’s forced to be open, exposed, unable to move his hands from the counter, even to turn around, his head spinning. He’s too tired to even cry.

With his eyes fixed on the ground, he puts a foot in front of the other, moving tentatively out of the room, helping himself by following the walls.

“Li, let me help-”

“Please, don’t touch me,” is the only thing he says.

He realises soon that his body is way too weak to lead him to his bedroom again, so he turns to go sit on the sofa. He gets swallowed by the too many blankets, and Zayn usually isn’t cold, he’s the one always insisting to sleep with the window open, but he must have been scared enough to seek the extra comfort. He buries himself under those, and closes his eyes, breathing in the clean scent, with the tiniest accent of Zayn’s smell.

Everything around him is now soft, dark, and smells like something he loves.

With his eyes closed, the warmth of the blankets on him, he feels the cushion near him dipping with Zayn’s weight.

None of them speaks for a long time. Liam breaths in and out, slowly, eyes firmly closed, too scared to open them again, to breathe too loudly, to say anything more. He’s too anxious and nauseous to fall asleep, so he just takes a moment to appreciate how non-threatening is everything his senses can pick up.

The blood pumping in his temples gets quieter, and he’s left to hear Zayn’s soft puffs, near him. There’s still an ocean to divide them, but Liam chose to not hide, this time. And it must mean something, for both of them.

The hangover is getting stronger, with all the traces of alcohol being processed by his body, leaving with the murky state of turmoil that always accompanies them. This is the worst stage, the one that always made him throw away any kind of progress he may have and get even more intoxicated. Leaving this bubble is always too painful.

“I would never accuse you of anything,” Zayn starts, voice soft. “For sure not of… something _like that._ I’m- I’m sorry for everything I said. I feel like I should know you enough to know how to… talk to you, that enough had happened to… Teach me how to do it.”

“It’s not your fault,” he has to say, before Zayn adds more. Zayn has always been a guy of few words, but powerful ones. Liam knows how angry with himself he always gets when he can’t comfort him right. But it’s not his fault if he’s this… delicate. “None of this is. You’re… you’re too kind to me. You’ve always been.”

“But you are, too,” he protests immediately. “And I can’t be too kind to you, when you deserve all of this kindness, baby.” There’s some rummaging with the blankets. Liam remains in his cocoon. “And I wish you could see it, how all of this is not your fault, how it could never be. How the people who are supposed to work for you should know better than-” he stops, and Liam can hear how angry he is from the pattern of his breathing. It takes him a couple of deep breaths to be able to continue. “I’m just… consent without information can’t be consent.”

“Don’t,” he warns, but he’s pleading again. He had times, before the alcohol hit, and in the moments of vague lucidity of these past days, where he thought seriously about what happened, and how empty and used he felt. Even in his state of disorientation, it was clear that there was no way to downplay their actions.

Even if his team didn’t know his issue with his body and its image, _and they did,_ even if they had no idea about how alcohol is a sensitive topic for him, _and for fuck’s sake, they were one of the reasons he got so bad,_ what happened was still completely out of line.

He can’t have Zayn, too, telling him about how serious the situation was. He can’t stomach it. He doesn’t know how to word it, but he needs comfort, not another proof that something fucked up has been done to him.

Zayn, who is his fiancé, the person who knows him better than anyone else, sighs immediately an, “I’m sorry.”

And, because he’s the _one,_ after another sigh and pause, he starts again, way softer this time:

“I’d do anything to make you feel better, you know that right? You’re the best person I’ve ever met, and don’t, don’t comment that. You are.” Liam shuts his eyes closed until he sees the stars. “It kills me to see you dislike yourself so much, because I love you quite a bit, _jaan,”_ Zayn sniffles. “I wish you could see yourself with my eyes. I don’t think you’d ever doubt yourself, ever again. Because in my eyes, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Best person I’ve ever met. And I- I get to marry you,” he whispers, voice broken. “I’ll marry you, one day, and sometimes I still stop and wonder how something so amazing happened to me.”

Liam thinks that it’s all the opposite, he’s the one who doesn’t understand his luck, the one who should say those things to him, over and over again, and not the other way around.

Instead, he just mumbles:

“I can’t even shower, right now.”

He wonders if Zayn gets what he’s trying to say and how much it hurts and feels humiliating to have reached that point. _Again._

He was doing good, before that day. Not great, maybe, but his worst days were definitely over. Now he fears they could start again, that he just had scratched all his progress. He doesn’t know if he would have the energy to fight that same battle.

“You… you don’t have to,” Zayn whispers, after a pause. “I know what it’s like. I wish it never happened again, but… it’s not linear, is it? It takes time. And I… I’ll be here as long as you’ll have me.”

“Fuck, Zee,” he emerges from the duvets. “I’ll always want you.”

His eyes take a moment to adjust to the light, and what he finds when he can finally see again is the love of his life curled up on the other side of the sofa, careful to not touch him, not even by accident.

His eyes are shiny with tears, he’s pale and fidgeting from the anger, the heartbreak, the pain of what Liam told him. He’s looking at him like he’s the most precious creature on the planet, _still,_ like he’s trying to communicate with his eyes only how much he’s ready to fight for him, to always be next to him.

It sparks a glow, in his chest, that he had forgotten.

He still can’t stand the thought of Zayn looking at him, when he feels this gross, but he’s starting to remember how sincere the other is. He’s not lying to him: he really loves him that much. But that’s not enough: he’s too down, too lost to overpower that hatred he still has for himself.

“I’m just…” he tries, and it’s so difficult to talk when you’re this hungover, when you’re giving voice to something as vile as his feelings are now. “I can’t even stand the fact that I have a face, now. I can’t even think about my body.” Just saying the word makes him gag. “I just want to hide and be forgotten.”

 _And I know you love me and you don’t see me for what I feel now, but I still feel like I should warn you. About how awful I really am._ He can’t say any of that, so he doesn’t.

Zayn’s been nodding all along with him.

“I don’t want to… pressure you. Told you, it takes time, and maybe we don’t have as much peace as we would want to, but…” he sighs, passing his hands on his face. He must be exhausted: his last two days were hell, too. “I’m just trying to say, you’re right to feel like this. What they did was… despicable,” Liam feels the ghost of a smile for a second about his vocabulary. He had always been the one with the big words. “There’s no rush. We will sleep in, as much as you want, and… and we can paint together, tomorrow, if you want, yeah?” He tries to smile at him, through the tears. “We can put on some music and dance. We can have a boxing session. Or watch one on TV. Anything, really. Anything you want.”

He’s still looking at him with soft love written all over his feature, and Liam can’t breathe: but this time, in a good way. _He is loved._ And he admires Zayn way too much to think he is wrong, so maybe, but just _maybe, he deserves to be loved._

It’s so much it leaves him breathless.

“And don’t say bad things about your face. I’ve got it tattooed on my leg,” Zayn adds, and Liam has to laugh a little with him, because _he did,_ and it’s so silly, but it still fills his heart with warmth.

“You are so much more than your body, and I don’t wanna… talk about that, because you’ll only get upset, but…” He moves closer. Liam lets him. “When I look at you, I see a person who always tried his best to make people feel at home. Accepted for who they are. Someone who always used his voice for the better. For others. Someone who managed to get _me_ out of my shell, and made me love every second of it.” He smiles again, a bigger, livelier smile. “You have overcome so much, baby, and you always used your strengths to help others. You’re my rock, and you’ve changed my life only for the better for the past ten years. I-” his voice gets caught. “I love you so much. I’d do anything to make you feel better.”

Liam has a lump in his throat. He can’t look at Zayn while he says such things, while he smiles so big at _him._ He’s blinding.

He turns his face to the floor, trembling.

“I really want to drink again. It hurts too much to be sober now,” he confesses. He’s not sure why he said that: maybe he just wants all his worst thoughts out there, clear, to not manipulate Zayn into thinking he’s healthier than how he appears.

He doesn’t dare to look at Zayn, too scared to see disappointment on his features. If he would have, he would have found only love and understanding written on him.

“ _Jaan. Jaan,”_ he repeats, inviting Liam to look at him. When he finally turns his head, he finds his love looking at him with the same soft eyes, gleaming with tears, exhausted. “I know you do, but… you didn’t. You could have… Made me go away, but for real. And you didn’t. That’s already something, yeah? You don’t have to get better _now.”_ And he sounds so sure, Liam ends up believing it. “We have time. I promise you.”

His hands are a bit stretched out, in a position that can’t be natural, but Zayn is so naturally nonchalant, all the time, it could be played off, with anyone else. Liam’s not anyone else, though.

Despite how much he’s shaking, how scared and repulsed of himself he still is, he sits up, with the blankets still covering him up to the shoulders. One of his hands turns up from the blankets, and, shakenly, reaches to Zayn’s one.

When they touch, Liam, for the first time since that nightmare started, feels that he can breathe again.

Zayn is keeping his head up, but he’s not stopping his tears from falling: biting his lip, he gives him a half-smile of pure pride and serenity.

Liam intertwines their fingers and squeezes his hand. The softness of Zayn’s hand, the love in his eyes warms wash over him, warming him up. 

Voice a whisper, too grateful to use it any louder, he says: “Thank you, For never losing your hope with me.”

Zayn lets out a sob that is pure bliss. “That’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done. You’re worth this and so much more, _meri jaan_.”

He’s looking at him with so much love in his eyes, and Liam knows he’s not lying. The devotion Zayn has for him runs over him, and, for the first time in days, he finally feels worthy of love.

~*~

(Some months later)

“Can you stay still… with your eyes closed? _Liam!”_ Zayn, in front of him, is exasperated.

“Sorry Zee, but I miss you too much when I close my eyes.” He bats his eyelashes, in a cartoonish, ridiculous way.

Zayn, for his part, just rolls eyes at him. He’s definitely blushing, but Liam won’t call him out. “You’re impossible, I swear.”

He gets near him again with the eyeliner, concentrated expression in his eyes. Liam remains still, without even breathing, waiting for its sharp tip. Then, at the last second, he ducks, dodges it and plants a kiss on Zayn’s left cheek.

 _“Liam,”_ he gasps, all fake shock. He’s trying to maintain his composure, but he’s too amused to be taken seriously. “I’ll end up poking your eyes out, like this.”

“You’d _never.”_

“Yeah, I _wouldn’t,_ you doofus. Stay still, I’m almost done.”

Sighing, Liam complies and closes his eyes again to enjoy the sensation of Zayn’s expert hands moving carefully around his eyes.

“Done,” he announces not long after. “ Told you, I just needed a second more.”

Liam doesn’t even have to ask that he has already a mirror in his hand. Zayn knows him and his impatience _so well._

He admires himself in the mirror, smiling as soon as he sees his reflection: the eyeliner outlines his eyes with a bold, thick black line, smudged on the lower lid, giving him a grunge look. He has just a little bit of mascara on the top lashes, and it makes his eyes pop, making them even bigger. He loves all of it, so, so much.

He turns his head, enjoying to see different angles and how interesting he now looks.

He had a bit of a fuss over his beard, not sure if he should have shaved it or not, but in the end he decided on keeping it, and he was now very happy about that decision: it added such a nice contrast with the rest of the look and with the pale pink lipstick. The lipstick was a bold move, for him, and he had put it on and take it off a couple of times, unsure, until Zayn had suggested that a thin coat wouldn’t have been that visible, especially post editing.

“So,” Zayn murmurs, distracting him from his image. “How does it look?”

Zayn, sitting in front of him on their king-size bed with crossed legs, has too some eyeliner and mascara on, even though he’s not going to be photographed. Just for fun.

There are makeup stuff and mirrors scattered all over the bed; only their bedside lamps are on, and the whole room is warm, cozy, intimate. Just for the two of them.

Liam lowers the mirror, and takes a moment to admire the man sit in front of him. _Bambi eyes,_ he has called him so many times, even before he had ever seen him with mascara on. Now those tender eyes are on him, alight with an affection that makes Liam feel warm. Loved.

“I love it, thank you.” He leans over and kisses him gently. He feels him smile against his lips. When he goes back to sit again, Zayn is still smiling, despite the shadow of pale pink now on his lips. “Do we have some glitter?”

The other man raises his eyebrows, surprised, and starts rummaging through their stuff without a comment.

“Just a bit,” Liam amends.

They have a bathroom with _chairs,_ where all their makeup stuff is in tidy, clean drawers, even professional lights, but Liam loves their makeup sessions on their bed. It’s just for fun, it’s just for the two of them. Once Zayn had commented that he felt a bit like his sisters during their sleepover, and Liam had felt a surprising thug in his heart, one that he didn’t know he could ever feel.

He had told about it to Zayn, because somewhere in all the years they’ve spent together Liam had learnt he could trust him with anything. He had said how that offhand comment made him feel so distant from the image everyone has of him, from the media-fabricated mask he has to put on everywhere, and how that made him feel safe, because Zayn knew him better than anyone else. That he could be just _himself,_ with him.

Zayn blushed a whole lot at that, and told him that when it was just the two of them, they could be whoever they wanted, to any degree. The outside world didn’t exist, there with them, and they could lock it out whenever they wanted.

“Here,” Zayn offers, handing him a small tube of silver pigment. “Be careful, this shit gets everywhere.”

Liam takes it, then thinks better of it and slips the other hand behind Zayn’s head, bringing him closer to him. He kisses him, again, with more intention this time. Their lips are waxy and slip over each other, and he laughs a bit, in the kiss, too happy to not to.

“I like you a lot,” he singsongs when they separate.

Zayn is trying too hard to remain serious, but the light behind his eyes gives him away instantly. He has lipstick smeared all over his lips, now. “You’re lucky that I like you too.”

Liam just shows him his tongue, because sometimes you get so overwhelmed with love, that’s all you can do. That, and writing too many love songs.

He puts on the last touches of his makeup, and soon he’s ready for their photoshoot. He has a vision of how the photo has to be: he wants some drama, big shadows, some specific, cut lights, and the whole attention concentrated on his moody makeup.

They arrange together the last bits: the lights, the background, where Liam is going to sit and so on. When they’re ready Zayn looks around the room, to make sure they’re not forgetting anything. With the camera in one hand, he asks: “Outfit?”

Liam looks down at his sweatpants and his black t-shirt. “I think just this. It’s not that important, for the photo.”

Zayn nods, and takes some steps backwards to study the composition. The photoshoot is over quickly: both of them have a precise, artistic eye; Liam knows what he wants and Zayn knows how to work with him.

Soon enough they’re looking at the pics together, shoulder to shoulder.

When he sees it, Liam knows immediately. “This. This one.”

In the photo, he’s folded over himself: a sharp, cold light illuminates the right side of his face, underlining his bold makeup. Zayn was right: his lips are pink, but not so much that it is obvious he has lipstick on. His left side of the face is almost lost in the shadow, making the whole photo even more interesting. The glass he has tilted near his face reflects him, and again the only thing visible is his makeup and intense stare.

Zayn smiles on his shoulder. “Do you like this one? Shall we send this?”

Liam looks at the photo in front of him, studying it. He loves how there isn’t even an inch of his naked body on show, how creativity is the only thing that stands out. His makeup is loud, impossible to not notice, but it doesn’t steal the scene from _him,_ from the lights and the reflection game they have created together.

“Yeah.” He nods “This is the one.”

Zayn puts an arm around his waist, bringing him closer: feeling their bodies touch, it doesn’t even cross Liam’s mind all the things he could have thought months ago. Instead, he just enjoys his fiancé's lips on his own, how his hands over his waist make him feel like he’s _home,_ like he’s exactly where he should be.

How much he appreciates his body, because it’s through his body that he gets to experience those soft touches, the cold of his ring on his fourth finger of the left hand, the warmth in his chest, the laughter that bubble up when Zayn makes fun of him for one of his poses in the photos they won’t send.

Granted, there’s a long way to go, still. But sending a photo like that one, that captures a side of him so different from the ones that the world is so set to see, a side that represents him so much better than any professional photoshoot, is a good way to start.

Liam looks at it once more, and can see a glimpse of his true self in it.

“Yeah,” he repeats. “This one is _me_.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I hope you've enjoyed this! It was heavy to write but I'm satisfied with the result :) if you liked this please leave me a kudos or a comment! Tell me anything about this, I'm all ears :D
> 
> If you wanna say hi, [ this is my tumblr](https://chrysopon.tumblr.com/), and here is the [ tumblr post](https://chrysopon.tumblr.com/post/614772741427576832/i-learned-how-to-love-cause-you-taught-me-how-he), if you wanna reblog it or save it or anything else! Bye, stay safe, all the love xxx


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